Grads spread positivity through business

Laura Schmidt, MSM ’90, really is the Chief Positive Person.

Spend 30 seconds with her and you’ll realize she wears this positivity from her face to her feet. Spend 30 minutes with her—wander the warehouse, take in the 200,000 multicolored and multimessage positive-affirmation socks—and you’ll realize maybe we all should.

That’s Schmidt’s goal. Schmidt, who earned her Master of Science in Management from Baker in 1990, believes words make all the difference. That’s why she started notes to self, llc, in 2011: to spread positivity in her community, to make it wearable.

The Awesome Sock

The origin of the company is quite literally awesome. Schmidt was riding shotgun, with her feet on the dashboard, during a road trip with her family in 2011 when the idea came to her. She was reading The Answer by John Assaraf and Murray Smith, a self-help book for entrepreneurs and business people. The excerpt that struck her was about how the human mind’s subconscious filters are most open early in the morning and late at night.

“So I thought, this is the perfect time to deliver positive affirmation!” Schmidt said. “And when I looked at my feet on the dash, I turned and told my husband, Garret, that I was going to put positive words on the toes of socks so people will read them twice per day.”

Within weeks, Schmidt had a prototype for her first positive-affirmation sock: “I am AWESOME” Five years later, the socks are in 1,800 stores nationwide, as well as many hospitals, including the Mayo Clinic, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

“Of course, Children’s Mercy is a great fit for us,” she said. “It’s so rewarding to see those kids wearing ‘I am brave’ or ‘I am strong’ across their toes. Inspiring confidence and hope—that’s the goal.”

Since that original white AWESOME sock, the company has expanded its product line and distribution channels. The company now has a sock for nearly every reason and season: from “Great Mom” for Mother’s Day to “Beautiful Bridesmaid” for a friend’s nuptials.

The company is growing fast and recently upgraded its Mission warehouse space and brought on three more employees. Schmidt even kept an option on her former warehouse in case she needs it to store extra inventory, which is entirely possible as the company is finalizing a few licensing deals with several brands.

Giving Back

Schmidt wears her altruism the same way she does her positivity. In the last year, the company has donated more than 30,000 socks to homeless and women’s shelters throughout Kansas City. Schmidt, her husband, Garret, and their three children are longtime Prairie Village, Kansas, natives, so establishing a brand that gave back to their community was a key priority.

“Philanthropy is a big part of what we do,” Schmidt said. “I’m always looking for partners who want to help their favorite group of underprivileged people. Our mission is to share the socks and positive words with as many people as possible.”

Schmidt is quick to point out that positivity is infectious. This endeavor has provided her countless moments of personal reaffirmation.

“A young woman wrote me recently, and I had never met her, but she wrote me and included a picture of her mother, who was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer,” Schmidt said. “The woman owned three pairs of my socks: ‘I am beautiful,’ ‘I believe,’ and ‘I am blessed.’ She told me how she and her siblings took turns doing laundry, always making sure one of the pairs were clean because they were all her mother wanted to wear during her treatment.

And she ended her letter with ‘I just wanted you to know what a little thing like socks were to my family and me during our hardest time.’ ”

The Royal Feet

“It was the socks!” George Brett boomed from the other side of the phone.

It was game six of the 2014 World Series, and the Kansas City Royals were up 9-0 at the end of the fifth inning. The entire town was relying on the timing of this rally as Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants had blown out the Royals just two days before in the Bay Area. Just before the game—a few hours before Mike Moustakas blasted a home run into right field to seal it—Schmidt had delivered Brett, the KC legend, a box of royal blue socks with the words “I Believe” knitted into the toe.

“I’ll never forget this story,” Schmidt said. “I remember telling George that I wanted to drive a box of our Believe socks up to the stadium for the boys. The Giants had just beaten them pretty bad in game five, and I thought they needed the positive affirmation.”

And George said, “Laura, you can’t just go driving up to the stadium with boxes of socks; they’re going to arrest you. I’ll take them.”

Three hours later, in the middle of the sixth inning, Brett called her to celebrate.